Did they fire their consultants to save money? Because watching the first season, I found the math to be pretty much impeccable, but in later seasons it's seemed to really go down hill.
When did Claire get shot in the head? The cop shot her in the chest, that's the only shooting I remember. Peter got stabbed in the head and was 'dead' until they pulled the glass out, does that imply he'd survive getting his brains blown out and if he did would it stop the bomb? I never got the impression that they were sure no harm would come to Peter, that he was literally immortal, instead I got the impression Claire thought he would die, and that was the point of shooting him, and she didn't want to do it. At every point she seemed frightened of the prospect of shooting Peter. She only seemed sure that she would survive being near him.
(or not, I heard he wasn't dead after all, I dread to think what lame excuse they came up with for that)
Yeah, well, my defense of the ending of season 1 aside, in season 2 they really dorked around with the healing power, among other things.
Season 1 had it's fair share of tolerable plot holes, but Season 2 was a doozy, mostly imo because the writers were rushed to finish the season ASAP before the strike.
Re:It's fine that the source is closed, for them..
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Spore Hands-On Preview
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Now that's a whiny crybaby,
No, I'm sorry to inform you, but that was a troll.
The Heroes writers are apparently oblivious to one of the most fundamental rules of fiction: the audience can suspend their disbelief to believe in supernatural powers, but only if the story is internally consistent. When the writers forget what their own characters can do, the suspension of disbelief smacks the audience in the face and the story becomes a farce.
And what nerds forget is that the characters in the story are supposed to be real humans in real situations with real emotions. Just because you can Comic Book Guy it out in a detached fashion and think of exactly how you'd use your super powers in that situation, doesn't mean the story suddenly becomes internally inconsistent if the character doesn't have the same idea.
Peter was freaking out over losing control over his nuclear powers. Why do you assume he could make use of or control any of his other powers at that moment either when he was already trying as hard as he could to not blow up?
That said, Hiro or Mojinder should have killed Sylar when they had the chance, and when Hiro finally *did* get around to stabbing Sylar, he should have stabbed him many, many times.
*sigh* Sadly, the show has gone downhill with regards to the mathematic accuracy. In the first season, it was pretty great. All the math and algorithms were used correctly and would actually do the things that they said it would do. The biggest leap was that they always seemed to be able to put quantitative values on fairly subjective things, but if you accepted that then it all made sense.
I guess they just started running out of plausible ways for math to save the day, and now it's just become more of a super-power plot device evoked through math terminology. I remember a recent episode where "math guy" was doing calculations using Venn Diagrams. Venn Diagrams!
I dunno, I still watch the show but mostly for nostalgia for the first season I suppose. It's a decent enough cop show, and still more realistic than CSI imo. Of course the best 'cop show' is NCIS.
Even if you are or were, I could eat you for lunch in court.
What, you mean in some hypothetical case where you were challenging the principle of the prohibition against post-fact laws only applying to ones that make something illegal which used to be legal, as opposed to making something legal which used to be illegal?
No, you'd get your sorry ass handed to you on a platter with decorative springs of parsley around it.
There's a reason behind the many precedents, and it isn't the 2-year old argument that "well it's been done before". Real lawyers and judges know this. You only understand the 2-year-old argument, so that's all you can argue against. Thusly, a chimpanzee in a suit could defeat you in court. Or if they couldn't find a chimpanzee, I could. You might want to check up on the actual case history, that thing real lawyers and judges do.
Your usage of "illogical" is not justified here. Under one definition of "viable", it is perfectly logical to go to step 4. Without defining "viable" your point is lost. But of course you define it how a scientist would, while someone else might define it as a religious person would. And therein lies the rub.
It's perfectly valid and justified, because the submarine-Creationist is attempting to make a scientific argument in order to debunk science to create an opportunity for them to inject Creationism as equally "viable" from a "should-be-taught-in-science-class" standpoint. So they've chosen to enter the scientific realm and are subject to science's definition of "logical".
If you build bridges based on the teachings of the bible, you'll quickly find out that it doesn't work. (Churches have lightning conductors because they do work.) But if you try to use the discoveries of science to pontificate on the philosophical nature of life, you'll quickly find that it doesn't work either. Dawkins is simply wrong on a philosophical level, just as Genesis is simply wrong on an evolutionary level.
I'm well aware of this fact. I'm a Christian who believes in God and Jesus as my savior and that for understanding our spiritual selves God and religion are the path, yet at the same time for understanding our physical world I believe the scientific method is better than a literal interpretation of a metaphorical creation story written by and for people thousands of years ago.
Science and religion can coexist because they deal with different aspects of life, and many people, including myself, have no problem with this. But that's not the kind of person I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who does not believe they can coexist, and is thus making a calculated effort to replace actual science with their own religious beliefs draped in pseudo-scientific trappings. I'm talking about people who perceive the Theory of Evolution as a threat, and are thus attacking it and trying to keep it from being taught to children.
A bit of respect on both sides when faced with the fundamental unknowables of the universe would go a long way.
I do not nor do I feel I should have any respect for someone who relies on trickery and subterfuge to discredit others ideas, and to present their ideas as something other than what they are. When a Creationist lies about their beliefs and intentions in a calculated attempt to make their belief system seem like a viable scientific alternative worthy to be taught in science class, respect is the last thing that person should be given.
This isn't 1st century Rome, or the USSR. There's no legitimate reason for a Christian to hide their beliefs. As a Christian, I am particularly disgusted by those who think lying about being a Christian in any way furthers the cause.
I'm pleased to have a Basset Hound living in my home. Survival of the fittest did not make him. Humans did. Through the selection mechanism of Intelligent Design. Get the fuck over it. Have you ever seen a corn field? Is it shocking that the modern female is fucking sexy compared to the troglodytic premodern?
And do you believe that this same mechanism accounts for all genetic diversity? Because if you are only talking about selective breeding, then guess what? That's NOT capital-I-D Intelligent Design, you dumb fuck. That's "selective breeding", or in the case of attractive females "sexual selection", both about as mundane and mainstream of theories as evolution itself and not having special theory names.
What you're doing is like me going "Der, Evolution isn't necessarily about random changes altering populations through natural selection you moron! To me Evolution is about species wanting to change because they feel in their hearts that they can be better!" No, wrong, that's not what evolution is. And "Intelligent Design" is not the theory that some things on earth were designed by an (our) intelligence. It's a theory that is an alternate explanation for the diversity of all species. Though I give it more respect than it deserves by calling it a theory.
Look, it's like this: there is no God but there is Intelligent Design.
There is no Intelligent Design without God. Not because you have to believe in God to believe in ID, but because it naturally follows. The primary theorem of ID is that our intelligence is to complex to have arisen naturally, and must have been created by some other intelligence. Well where did that intelligence come from? The same ideas of ID suggest that it couldn't have arisen naturally, so there must be another designer... and so on. Now, if you're religious, that's easy, the original Intelligent Designer is a supernatural being with no beginning or end and thus no need for a creater.
If you're not religious and believe in Intelligent Design, then you're just a giant retard.
And furthermore, there is no difference between a normal reasonable person and a "closet creationist"
Of course there is. A reasonable person, including a reasonable Creationist, is up-front with their beliefs. Lying, duplicitous douchebags who inherently know that their position is not reasonable, but want to trick you into accepting it anyway, feign open-minded skepticism that suddenly turns into evangelism.
Anyway, in summary, you're a fucking idiot--I on the other hand, am quite a bit more gifted and talented than you--but hey bud, you can do better, and I'd like to help you.
Of course you are! Your mom was right, you're special!
Let me help you: there is, unequivocally, at least some flavor of intelligent design in our world.
And with no capital letters there, the answer is: duh! The computers we're using right now were "intelligently designed" by humans. That's not "Intelligent Design". You should at least know what something is before you defend it, jackass.
I fucking hate you.
Aw, but I love you! I think you're very stupid, but I still love you.
It'd be really, really hilarious to me if your whole retarded polemic was because I used the phrase "Intelligent Design" in obvious reference to the non-scientific alternate theory for speciation, while in your personal view there is something that could be called "intelligent design" but isn't what is commonly called -- by anyone -- ID.
Thats disingenuous. The beliefs of people you or I may disagree with are not formed in any more of a vacuum than our own.
Whatever. I'm talking about a rhetorical device. Pardon my lax use of pronouns.
Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person (whatever that means) and somebody you disagree with until you talk to them. Is that any surprise?
You don't get what I'm saying. With your average person who is curious and/or skeptical of science, they're asking these questions sincerely because they don't know, and while they may not accept the answers, nevertheless the question was sincere. The hidden Creationist isn't sincere, those questions are nothing but a setup with which to introduce their pre-conceived ideas. They don't come right out and say "I believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago" or whatever their specific flavor of Creationism is, because that simply won't be treated seriously in a science-aware forum like this one. Instead they start by trying to poke holes in science as a way to create a gap with which to introduce their ideas, and it can take many back-and-forth steps before they get to the point where they'll stop feigning like they don't know the answers and reveal what they have actually believed all along.
Like Intelligent Design itself, it's a calculated attempt to introduce Creationism in an under-handed manner. If they were being up-front and honest, it wouldn't take long at all to tell that they are a Creationist because they wouldn't go through the trouble of the whole pretend-skeptic routine in the first place. Being a Christian myself, I've met plenty of up-front and honest Creationists, and it's completely different. There's no game being played, just honest discussion of beliefs.
It's starts with curiosity: "How do they know how old it is?" Which gets extended to skepticism: "How could they possibly be sure? Maybe their assumptions are wrong." Which somehow becomes rejection: "Scientists don't really know anything, it's all just belief!" Then the gigantic illogical leap: "Thus any alternative hypothesis I propose is equally viable." And then the 'reveal' which is: "So I bet my spiritual guide book could serve as a physics textbook if you interpreted it literally!"
Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person and a closet creationist until you're several steps in. It kinda pisses me off, the way the Creationists have adopted the strategy of Intelligent Design and hiding their beliefs as though they're just genuine scientific skeptics with an open mind, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Though I agree with you, in this case I think this was legitimate curiosity, and the GP was just being paranoid. It won't take that long to tell if I'm wrong.:P
If you cross the border, you can be searched. If your communications cross the border, they can be monitored.
The law disagrees. It is quite explicit that the only time a court order is not required is when there is no substantial chance of acquiring the contents of communication by a U.S. citizen or alien legally within the U.S., regardless of whether the other end of the communication is foreign or not.
It's pretty hilarious hearing you call that the "al Qaeda interpretation". And by hilarious I mean extremely sad. Sad that people would abandon their rights and allow their government to break the law simply because TEH BOOGIEMANS are out to get you.
Well yeah! As this poster pointed out, Clinton was too busy kissing babies.
That just shows what kind of candidate for change she is! While McCain and Obama were on Capitol Hill mucking around with Politics As Usual(tm), Clinton was out on the streets dealing with our debilitating unkissed baby problem!
AG Mukassey does not agree with that. Last night's interview on Lehrer News Hour had him state that no one can be investigated or charged for waterboarding because previous AG Gonzales said it was legal and that absolves anyone who followed that advice of any crime.
I don't agree with that, but that is the stance of the country's highest law enforcement official.
Which just means that this AG's DoJ will not start any investigations or bring any charges, because that's the only power the AG has. The AG's opinions are nothing more than opinions, they aren't legally binding in any sense of the word, they only guide the actions of his department while he is head of it. The next AG who comes along is perfectly free to disagree and bring charges, at which case the only entity empowered to determine such things -- the courts -- will weigh in with a legally binding opinion.
And I have a strong feeling that the courts would weigh much more heavily towards the GP's stance that following orders is not a defense.
There's been a couple trends of what I can only call conditioning. The first, a fairly old one it seems, is that anything illegal is automatically immoral, which leads to the inverse that anything legal is automatically moral. Then there's what seems to be the more recent Bushian stance that as President he and his AG have the power to declare anything legal that they want.
Taking your argument to its logical conclusion means that no eavesdropping could ever occur because they would not only have to have a warrant to spy on the mob-run business but also for every person who ever called in to it.
No, because my argument is specifically about when Constitutional protections apply, and when wiretap is legal. When a judge issues a warrant for a wiretap on a business, they are fully aware of the other parties who may be tapped and have ruled that this is legal because they have taken into account all the protections you discuss.
I take it as given that when there is a court-issued warrant for a wiretap, that wiretap is legal. There are even laws about it that I don't agree with -- the roving wiretap law Clinton signed being a big one -- but nevertheless these are legal taps, at least by the minimal standards specified in the U.S. Constitution.
And when law enforcement doesn't comply with the law regarding a wiretap, there's more at stake than simply losing a conviction. They will be sued, sometimes even prosecuted. Because they broke the law.
It's no different for warrantless wiretaps.
Yes, it is, because there's no judicial review. And the law is quite clear that the only time a wiretap can be performed without a court order is when there is no substantial chance of listening in on a US person (meaning a citizen or alien lawfully in the country). Since the administration has admitted to listening in on U.S. citizens, and admitted that they did not acquire warrants to do so, where exactly is the wiggle room here?
So they can't use the information in a court case. So what? They weren't going to try to anyway, and we've seen they have other ways of acting on such information. It's still illegal spying in any case.
One of these cases in particular was brought by a lawyer who was conversing with his client overseas. Someone in the government inadvertently leaked the document that detailed a wiretap was in place for his client. He's brought the case to the court making the legal argument that he was tapped but the reality is that he's being paid by his client and he's not trying to do some noble thing he's just trying to keep his client off the hook.
So the one leaked case happened to be for an actual alleged bad guy? I won't call that a convenient coincidence, I'll just say "who cares?" I hope that if you are ever arrested and read your Miranda Rights you appreciate those rights even though the eponymous Miranda was a rather bad guy too (allegedly).
If the government truly had reason to believe this client was a bad guy, then they should have been able to get a warrant from the FISA court. If he truly is a bad guy, and because of the warrantless tap he gets off, well then that should teach the government to obey the law. Besides, FISA is widely know to rubber-stamp anything that comes before them, rejecting only a few of the thousands of warrants put before them. The fact that the government didn't even try to get a warrant tells me all I need to know about the quality of their "intelligence".
So sue the government. Filing a lawsuit with the aim of outing information about a third party -- or indeed with any aim other than solely to impose just sanctions agains the defense -- is an abuse of the court system.
No it isn't an abuse. The lawsuits are just, because the telcos broke the law, and they should be punished for that.
I thought your complaint was that this wasn't addressing the true problem of the government breaking the law. I'm explaining how the lawsuits also address that. And just so you know, it is extremely common and not considered an abuse at all for an otherwise just and proper suit to have other strategic purposes, whether that be establishing a precedent, creating situations ripe for appeal and perhaps judicial review, to yes in fact exposing other crimes which leads to other lawsuits.
The problem with suing the government is that until we actually know for certain what they did any lawsuit isn't even going to get off the ground, its doubtful anyone would even have standing to do so until we know more. If you really think the government should be sued, the telco lawsuits are the best first step in doing so.
Punishing the telecom companies for cooperating with the government wouldn't actually protect anyone's rights anyway. The grant of immunity is a corollary problem; the root problem is that the government would engage in a warrantless wiretap program to begin with, and until that is addressed we will continue to be short-changed on our rights as citizens.
Yes and these lawsuits are in fact the point of the spear aimed at the root of the problem.
Punishing the telcos and getting damages isn't the important part. It's something that should be done, but it is really just a means to an end. The ultimate point is to find out through discovery what exactly the government did. The aim is to get evidence out into the open, in the public record, of the government's malfeasance.
Once the spear point has pierced the government's veil of secrecy, then we can drive it deeper into the government itself. With the information revealed in the suits, it may be possible to sue the government, get court rulings about the legality of the administration's practices, and ultimately set up the possibility of future prosecution. If it can create enough of a scandal to cost politicians and bureaucrats their careers, while not optimal, that can still serve as a check to keep the government in line for a while.
This is also, ultimately, what the immunity provisions are about. It's nothing to do with protecting telcos from having to pay damages, that's just the means to an end. It's all about preventing anyone from discovering what the government really did -- they even admit it when talking about why the provision is necessary, though of course they couch it in "national security secrets" terms. Bush and team are trying to cover their own ass, and cowardly Congress is going along with it.
By the way, you raise a good point about Google and China. Personally I don't forgive Google, but at the same time I recognize the realities of working with a government like China's, one such reality being that censoring the people is not illegal. At the same time our government is not China's, our government is supposed to respect human rights, and more importantly it is illegal for them not to just as it is illegal for AT&T. And also because our government is not China's, we the people should be able to discover when our government or corporations break the law and demand redress. Which, coming full circle, is exactly what these lawsuits are about.
Remember that this is the Foreign Intelligence/Surveillance Act. If they did use it to spy on purely domestic communications without a warrant then they are probably guilty because they stepped outside the bounds of the law.
I thought it was only purely foreign communications that were exempt from warrants, since otherwise there is at least one party in the U.S. who must be afforded their Constitutional rights. If there's a guy in Yemen talking to a guy in Topeka, you can't say that you're only spying on the guy from Yemen because you're necessarily listening to the guy from Topeka too.
That's the whole reason there's a FISA Court whose purpose is to issue warrants that fall under the auspices of the Act.
It is illegal for the telcos to tap phone lines, and the only exception is when the government shows them a warrant or has probable cause. Essentially, if the government did not have a legal warrant, or probable cause with which to attain a warrant after the fact, then the telcos tapping was also illegal.
TFA even specifies this, not that I would point fingers at anyone for not reading it.;)
Really, are you that much of a pedant that you'll keep arguing over minutiae up until the last possible moment? You're not helping anyone but yourself.
If that. I can only imagine him passing through a checkpoint, having to show his papers, but ah-ha, the officer didn't ask when he'd be back! Not a police state yet!
The classic example being the crime of helping escaped slaves (or being an escaped slave), which retroactively became not a crime.
However if I'm not mistaken, this bill wouldn't actually make it retroactively legal for the telcos to conduct warrantless wiretaps whenever the government asks, it would only prevent any civil lawsuits from being brought against them for violating the relevant laws.
Sorry EA/Maxis. You missed your opportunity with me. I'm sure its a wonderful product but lets be honest with our release dates from now on.
Okay... And how exactly would honesty -- meaning they had initially told you that Spore would be out in Sept 08 -- have changed your computer-using situation in any way?
You have a legal right to assemble to petition your government for grievance.
http://usconstitution.net/const.html#Am1 : "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Gee, I must have missed the part where the right to peaceably assembly existed solely for purposes of petitioning the government. I guess the Government has a right to prohibit my Bridge Club since after all we're assembling, but not to protest the government.
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Did they fire their consultants to save money? Because watching the first season, I found the math to be pretty much impeccable, but in later seasons it's seemed to really go down hill.
When did Claire get shot in the head? The cop shot her in the chest, that's the only shooting I remember. Peter got stabbed in the head and was 'dead' until they pulled the glass out, does that imply he'd survive getting his brains blown out and if he did would it stop the bomb? I never got the impression that they were sure no harm would come to Peter, that he was literally immortal, instead I got the impression Claire thought he would die, and that was the point of shooting him, and she didn't want to do it. At every point she seemed frightened of the prospect of shooting Peter. She only seemed sure that she would survive being near him.
(or not, I heard he wasn't dead after all, I dread to think what lame excuse they came up with for that)
Yeah, well, my defense of the ending of season 1 aside, in season 2 they really dorked around with the healing power, among other things.
Season 1 had it's fair share of tolerable plot holes, but Season 2 was a doozy, mostly imo because the writers were rushed to finish the season ASAP before the strike.
Now that's a whiny crybaby,
No, I'm sorry to inform you, but that was a troll.
The Heroes writers are apparently oblivious to one of the most fundamental rules of fiction: the audience can suspend their disbelief to believe in supernatural powers, but only if the story is internally consistent. When the writers forget what their own characters can do, the suspension of disbelief smacks the audience in the face and the story becomes a farce.
And what nerds forget is that the characters in the story are supposed to be real humans in real situations with real emotions. Just because you can Comic Book Guy it out in a detached fashion and think of exactly how you'd use your super powers in that situation, doesn't mean the story suddenly becomes internally inconsistent if the character doesn't have the same idea.
Peter was freaking out over losing control over his nuclear powers. Why do you assume he could make use of or control any of his other powers at that moment either when he was already trying as hard as he could to not blow up?
That said, Hiro or Mojinder should have killed Sylar when they had the chance, and when Hiro finally *did* get around to stabbing Sylar, he should have stabbed him many, many times.
*sigh* Sadly, the show has gone downhill with regards to the mathematic accuracy. In the first season, it was pretty great. All the math and algorithms were used correctly and would actually do the things that they said it would do. The biggest leap was that they always seemed to be able to put quantitative values on fairly subjective things, but if you accepted that then it all made sense.
I guess they just started running out of plausible ways for math to save the day, and now it's just become more of a super-power plot device evoked through math terminology. I remember a recent episode where "math guy" was doing calculations using Venn Diagrams. Venn Diagrams!
I dunno, I still watch the show but mostly for nostalgia for the first season I suppose. It's a decent enough cop show, and still more realistic than CSI imo. Of course the best 'cop show' is NCIS.
Even if you are or were, I could eat you for lunch in court.
What, you mean in some hypothetical case where you were challenging the principle of the prohibition against post-fact laws only applying to ones that make something illegal which used to be legal, as opposed to making something legal which used to be illegal?
No, you'd get your sorry ass handed to you on a platter with decorative springs of parsley around it.
There's a reason behind the many precedents, and it isn't the 2-year old argument that "well it's been done before". Real lawyers and judges know this. You only understand the 2-year-old argument, so that's all you can argue against. Thusly, a chimpanzee in a suit could defeat you in court. Or if they couldn't find a chimpanzee, I could. You might want to check up on the actual case history, that thing real lawyers and judges do.
Your usage of "illogical" is not justified here. Under one definition of "viable", it is perfectly logical to go to step 4. Without defining "viable" your point is lost. But of course you define it how a scientist would, while someone else might define it as a religious person would. And therein lies the rub.
It's perfectly valid and justified, because the submarine-Creationist is attempting to make a scientific argument in order to debunk science to create an opportunity for them to inject Creationism as equally "viable" from a "should-be-taught-in-science-class" standpoint. So they've chosen to enter the scientific realm and are subject to science's definition of "logical".
If you build bridges based on the teachings of the bible, you'll quickly find out that it doesn't work. (Churches have lightning conductors because they do work.) But if you try to use the discoveries of science to pontificate on the philosophical nature of life, you'll quickly find that it doesn't work either. Dawkins is simply wrong on a philosophical level, just as Genesis is simply wrong on an evolutionary level.
I'm well aware of this fact. I'm a Christian who believes in God and Jesus as my savior and that for understanding our spiritual selves God and religion are the path, yet at the same time for understanding our physical world I believe the scientific method is better than a literal interpretation of a metaphorical creation story written by and for people thousands of years ago.
Science and religion can coexist because they deal with different aspects of life, and many people, including myself, have no problem with this. But that's not the kind of person I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who does not believe they can coexist, and is thus making a calculated effort to replace actual science with their own religious beliefs draped in pseudo-scientific trappings. I'm talking about people who perceive the Theory of Evolution as a threat, and are thus attacking it and trying to keep it from being taught to children.
A bit of respect on both sides when faced with the fundamental unknowables of the universe would go a long way.
I do not nor do I feel I should have any respect for someone who relies on trickery and subterfuge to discredit others ideas, and to present their ideas as something other than what they are. When a Creationist lies about their beliefs and intentions in a calculated attempt to make their belief system seem like a viable scientific alternative worthy to be taught in science class, respect is the last thing that person should be given.
This isn't 1st century Rome, or the USSR. There's no legitimate reason for a Christian to hide their beliefs. As a Christian, I am particularly disgusted by those who think lying about being a Christian in any way furthers the cause.
Well it could be, your pronouns are a little confusing. Who is 'they'? And for that matter 'you'? I'm the one who knows what the law says.
I'm pleased to have a Basset Hound living in my home. Survival of the fittest did not make him. Humans did. Through the selection mechanism of Intelligent Design. Get the fuck over it. Have you ever seen a corn field? Is it shocking that the modern female is fucking sexy compared to the troglodytic premodern?
And do you believe that this same mechanism accounts for all genetic diversity? Because if you are only talking about selective breeding, then guess what? That's NOT capital-I-D Intelligent Design, you dumb fuck. That's "selective breeding", or in the case of attractive females "sexual selection", both about as mundane and mainstream of theories as evolution itself and not having special theory names.
What you're doing is like me going "Der, Evolution isn't necessarily about random changes altering populations through natural selection you moron! To me Evolution is about species wanting to change because they feel in their hearts that they can be better!" No, wrong, that's not what evolution is. And "Intelligent Design" is not the theory that some things on earth were designed by an (our) intelligence. It's a theory that is an alternate explanation for the diversity of all species. Though I give it more respect than it deserves by calling it a theory.
Look, it's like this: there is no God but there is Intelligent Design.
There is no Intelligent Design without God. Not because you have to believe in God to believe in ID, but because it naturally follows. The primary theorem of ID is that our intelligence is to complex to have arisen naturally, and must have been created by some other intelligence. Well where did that intelligence come from? The same ideas of ID suggest that it couldn't have arisen naturally, so there must be another designer... and so on. Now, if you're religious, that's easy, the original Intelligent Designer is a supernatural being with no beginning or end and thus no need for a creater.
If you're not religious and believe in Intelligent Design, then you're just a giant retard.
And furthermore, there is no difference between a normal reasonable person and a "closet creationist"
Of course there is. A reasonable person, including a reasonable Creationist, is up-front with their beliefs. Lying, duplicitous douchebags who inherently know that their position is not reasonable, but want to trick you into accepting it anyway, feign open-minded skepticism that suddenly turns into evangelism.
Anyway, in summary, you're a fucking idiot--I on the other hand, am quite a bit more gifted and talented than you--but hey bud, you can do better, and I'd like to help you.
Of course you are! Your mom was right, you're special!
Let me help you: there is, unequivocally, at least some flavor of intelligent design in our world.
And with no capital letters there, the answer is: duh! The computers we're using right now were "intelligently designed" by humans. That's not "Intelligent Design". You should at least know what something is before you defend it, jackass.
I fucking hate you.
Aw, but I love you! I think you're very stupid, but I still love you.
It'd be really, really hilarious to me if your whole retarded polemic was because I used the phrase "Intelligent Design" in obvious reference to the non-scientific alternate theory for speciation, while in your personal view there is something that could be called "intelligent design" but isn't what is commonly called -- by anyone -- ID.
Thats disingenuous. The beliefs of people you or I may disagree with are not formed in any more of a vacuum than our own.
Whatever. I'm talking about a rhetorical device. Pardon my lax use of pronouns.
Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person (whatever that means) and somebody you disagree with until you talk to them. Is that any surprise?
You don't get what I'm saying. With your average person who is curious and/or skeptical of science, they're asking these questions sincerely because they don't know, and while they may not accept the answers, nevertheless the question was sincere. The hidden Creationist isn't sincere, those questions are nothing but a setup with which to introduce their pre-conceived ideas. They don't come right out and say "I believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago" or whatever their specific flavor of Creationism is, because that simply won't be treated seriously in a science-aware forum like this one. Instead they start by trying to poke holes in science as a way to create a gap with which to introduce their ideas, and it can take many back-and-forth steps before they get to the point where they'll stop feigning like they don't know the answers and reveal what they have actually believed all along.
Like Intelligent Design itself, it's a calculated attempt to introduce Creationism in an under-handed manner. If they were being up-front and honest, it wouldn't take long at all to tell that they are a Creationist because they wouldn't go through the trouble of the whole pretend-skeptic routine in the first place. Being a Christian myself, I've met plenty of up-front and honest Creationists, and it's completely different. There's no game being played, just honest discussion of beliefs.
It's general paranoia based on an old pattern.
:P
It's starts with curiosity: "How do they know how old it is?"
Which gets extended to skepticism: "How could they possibly be sure? Maybe their assumptions are wrong."
Which somehow becomes rejection: "Scientists don't really know anything, it's all just belief!"
Then the gigantic illogical leap: "Thus any alternative hypothesis I propose is equally viable."
And then the 'reveal' which is: "So I bet my spiritual guide book could serve as a physics textbook if you interpreted it literally!"
Unfortunately, you can't really tell the difference between a normal reasonable person and a closet creationist until you're several steps in. It kinda pisses me off, the way the Creationists have adopted the strategy of Intelligent Design and hiding their beliefs as though they're just genuine scientific skeptics with an open mind, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Though I agree with you, in this case I think this was legitimate curiosity, and the GP was just being paranoid. It won't take that long to tell if I'm wrong.
If you cross the border, you can be searched. If your communications cross the border, they can be monitored.
The law disagrees. It is quite explicit that the only time a court order is not required is when there is no substantial chance of acquiring the contents of communication by a U.S. citizen or alien legally within the U.S., regardless of whether the other end of the communication is foreign or not.
It's pretty hilarious hearing you call that the "al Qaeda interpretation". And by hilarious I mean extremely sad. Sad that people would abandon their rights and allow their government to break the law simply because TEH BOOGIEMANS are out to get you.
Well yeah! As this poster pointed out, Clinton was too busy kissing babies.
That just shows what kind of candidate for change she is! While McCain and Obama were on Capitol Hill mucking around with Politics As Usual(tm), Clinton was out on the streets dealing with our debilitating unkissed baby problem!
No Child Left Unkissed! Clinton for Pres!
AG Mukassey does not agree with that. Last night's interview on Lehrer News Hour had him state that no one can be investigated or charged for waterboarding because previous AG Gonzales said it was legal and that absolves anyone who followed that advice of any crime.
I don't agree with that, but that is the stance of the country's highest law enforcement official.
Which just means that this AG's DoJ will not start any investigations or bring any charges, because that's the only power the AG has. The AG's opinions are nothing more than opinions, they aren't legally binding in any sense of the word, they only guide the actions of his department while he is head of it. The next AG who comes along is perfectly free to disagree and bring charges, at which case the only entity empowered to determine such things -- the courts -- will weigh in with a legally binding opinion.
And I have a strong feeling that the courts would weigh much more heavily towards the GP's stance that following orders is not a defense.
There's been a couple trends of what I can only call conditioning. The first, a fairly old one it seems, is that anything illegal is automatically immoral, which leads to the inverse that anything legal is automatically moral. Then there's what seems to be the more recent Bushian stance that as President he and his AG have the power to declare anything legal that they want.
Taking your argument to its logical conclusion means that no eavesdropping could ever occur because they would not only have to have a warrant to spy on the mob-run business but also for every person who ever called in to it.
No, because my argument is specifically about when Constitutional protections apply, and when wiretap is legal. When a judge issues a warrant for a wiretap on a business, they are fully aware of the other parties who may be tapped and have ruled that this is legal because they have taken into account all the protections you discuss.
I take it as given that when there is a court-issued warrant for a wiretap, that wiretap is legal. There are even laws about it that I don't agree with -- the roving wiretap law Clinton signed being a big one -- but nevertheless these are legal taps, at least by the minimal standards specified in the U.S. Constitution.
And when law enforcement doesn't comply with the law regarding a wiretap, there's more at stake than simply losing a conviction. They will be sued, sometimes even prosecuted. Because they broke the law.
It's no different for warrantless wiretaps.
Yes, it is, because there's no judicial review. And the law is quite clear that the only time a wiretap can be performed without a court order is when there is no substantial chance of listening in on a US person (meaning a citizen or alien lawfully in the country). Since the administration has admitted to listening in on U.S. citizens, and admitted that they did not acquire warrants to do so, where exactly is the wiggle room here?
So they can't use the information in a court case. So what? They weren't going to try to anyway, and we've seen they have other ways of acting on such information. It's still illegal spying in any case.
One of these cases in particular was brought by a lawyer who was conversing with his client overseas. Someone in the government inadvertently leaked the document that detailed a wiretap was in place for his client. He's brought the case to the court making the legal argument that he was tapped but the reality is that he's being paid by his client and he's not trying to do some noble thing he's just trying to keep his client off the hook.
So the one leaked case happened to be for an actual alleged bad guy? I won't call that a convenient coincidence, I'll just say "who cares?" I hope that if you are ever arrested and read your Miranda Rights you appreciate those rights even though the eponymous Miranda was a rather bad guy too (allegedly).
If the government truly had reason to believe this client was a bad guy, then they should have been able to get a warrant from the FISA court. If he truly is a bad guy, and because of the warrantless tap he gets off, well then that should teach the government to obey the law. Besides, FISA is widely know to rubber-stamp anything that comes before them, rejecting only a few of the thousands of warrants put before them. The fact that the government didn't even try to get a warrant tells me all I need to know about the quality of their "intelligence".
So sue the government. Filing a lawsuit with the aim of outing information about a third party -- or indeed with any aim other than solely to impose just sanctions agains the defense -- is an abuse of the court system.
No it isn't an abuse. The lawsuits are just, because the telcos broke the law, and they should be punished for that.
I thought your complaint was that this wasn't addressing the true problem of the government breaking the law. I'm explaining how the lawsuits also address that. And just so you know, it is extremely common and not considered an abuse at all for an otherwise just and proper suit to have other strategic purposes, whether that be establishing a precedent, creating situations ripe for appeal and perhaps judicial review, to yes in fact exposing other crimes which leads to other lawsuits.
The problem with suing the government is that until we actually know for certain what they did any lawsuit isn't even going to get off the ground, its doubtful anyone would even have standing to do so until we know more. If you really think the government should be sued, the telco lawsuits are the best first step in doing so.
Punishing the telecom companies for cooperating with the government wouldn't actually protect anyone's rights anyway. The grant of immunity is a corollary problem; the root problem is that the government would engage in a warrantless wiretap program to begin with, and until that is addressed we will continue to be short-changed on our rights as citizens.
Yes and these lawsuits are in fact the point of the spear aimed at the root of the problem.
Punishing the telcos and getting damages isn't the important part. It's something that should be done, but it is really just a means to an end. The ultimate point is to find out through discovery what exactly the government did. The aim is to get evidence out into the open, in the public record, of the government's malfeasance.
Once the spear point has pierced the government's veil of secrecy, then we can drive it deeper into the government itself. With the information revealed in the suits, it may be possible to sue the government, get court rulings about the legality of the administration's practices, and ultimately set up the possibility of future prosecution. If it can create enough of a scandal to cost politicians and bureaucrats their careers, while not optimal, that can still serve as a check to keep the government in line for a while.
This is also, ultimately, what the immunity provisions are about. It's nothing to do with protecting telcos from having to pay damages, that's just the means to an end. It's all about preventing anyone from discovering what the government really did -- they even admit it when talking about why the provision is necessary, though of course they couch it in "national security secrets" terms. Bush and team are trying to cover their own ass, and cowardly Congress is going along with it.
By the way, you raise a good point about Google and China. Personally I don't forgive Google, but at the same time I recognize the realities of working with a government like China's, one such reality being that censoring the people is not illegal. At the same time our government is not China's, our government is supposed to respect human rights, and more importantly it is illegal for them not to just as it is illegal for AT&T. And also because our government is not China's, we the people should be able to discover when our government or corporations break the law and demand redress. Which, coming full circle, is exactly what these lawsuits are about.
Remember that this is the Foreign Intelligence/Surveillance Act. If they did use it to spy on purely domestic communications without a warrant then they are probably guilty because they stepped outside the bounds of the law.
I thought it was only purely foreign communications that were exempt from warrants, since otherwise there is at least one party in the U.S. who must be afforded their Constitutional rights. If there's a guy in Yemen talking to a guy in Topeka, you can't say that you're only spying on the guy from Yemen because you're necessarily listening to the guy from Topeka too.
That's the whole reason there's a FISA Court whose purpose is to issue warrants that fall under the auspices of the Act.
Privacy and wiretap laws.
;)
It is illegal for the telcos to tap phone lines, and the only exception is when the government shows them a warrant or has probable cause. Essentially, if the government did not have a legal warrant, or probable cause with which to attain a warrant after the fact, then the telcos tapping was also illegal.
TFA even specifies this, not that I would point fingers at anyone for not reading it.
Really, are you that much of a pedant that you'll keep arguing over minutiae up until the last possible moment? You're not helping anyone but yourself.
If that. I can only imagine him passing through a checkpoint, having to show his papers, but ah-ha, the officer didn't ask when he'd be back! Not a police state yet!
The classic example being the crime of helping escaped slaves (or being an escaped slave), which retroactively became not a crime.
However if I'm not mistaken, this bill wouldn't actually make it retroactively legal for the telcos to conduct warrantless wiretaps whenever the government asks, it would only prevent any civil lawsuits from being brought against them for violating the relevant laws.
Sorry EA/Maxis. You missed your opportunity with me. I'm sure its a wonderful product but lets be honest with our release dates from now on.
Okay... And how exactly would honesty -- meaning they had initially told you that Spore would be out in Sept 08 -- have changed your computer-using situation in any way?
Ah well, the US probably stole that advanced technology from the crashed aliens anyway.
The first indication that this was a bad idea should have been that the alien had crashed...
You have a legal right to assemble to petition your government for grievance.
http://usconstitution.net/const.html#Am1 :
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Gee, I must have missed the part where the right to peaceably assembly existed solely for purposes of petitioning the government. I guess the Government has a right to prohibit my Bridge Club since after all we're assembling, but not to protest the government.
P.S. It's called freedom of association.
That works until the enemy crosses the lines, which, if they're not totally incompetent, they will. Then plans have to be changed in a hurry.
Is this called "reconfliction"?